Sony Group reported a surprise 22% improvement in profit after a challenging holiday quarter, raising its full-year outlook on the back of solid demand for its entertainment offerings.

The Japanese conglomerate now expects operating profit of ?1.54 trillion ($9.8 billion) in the year through March, up from its previous forecast of ?1.43 trillion. In the three months to December, Sony earned an operating income of ?515 billion, outperforming analyst expectations, and improved sales by 1% to ?3.71 trillion.

Its Tokyo-traded shares rose as much as 5.9% after the results, marking their biggest leap since November.

A slate of marquee games including Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 from external publishers and Sony¡¯s own Ghost of Yotei bolstered the PlayStation business. Sony reported a rise in software sales to 97.2 million units, while its flagship PlayStation 5 sold 8 million consoles in the period. The company did caution, however, that profitability of the wider games and networking division worsened, due to hardware costs.

Revenue also got a boost from Sony¡¯s consistently strong music-streaming proceeds and related live events. The company¡¯s image sensor division reported about a 20% jump in revenue in the company¡¯s fiscal third quarter, with Sony noting sales for mobile products increased. The outlook for that business now appears clouded by the industrywide shortage of memory ¡ª which is forcing smartphone makers to cut sales forecasts or alter product specifications.

¡°With the stock price having continued to decline amid concerns about rising costs driven by higher prices for DRAM and other components, the results likely came as a positive surprise for the market,¡± said Toyo Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda. ¡°Both the music and gaming divisions performed solidly, and the semiconductor business also benefited from strong iPhone sales. The upward revision to the outlook this time likely sent a strong message to investors.¡±

Sony¡¯s broad content portfolio has outweighed rising pressure on margins from the memory chip supply crunch, which is ratcheting up costs for everything from digital cameras and smartphones to game consoles. Rival Nintendo also put up strong competition with its new Switch 2 console, which finished the year as the bestselling games platform in the key U.S. market.

Sony has been working to reduce its exposure to lower-margin hardware. Chief Executive Officer Hiroki Totoki has said that further reconfiguration of the company¡¯s business portfolio remains an option. Last month, the Tokyo-based company announced a deal to spin out its television operations ¡ª including its Bravia brand ¡ª to a joint venture majority-owned by Hong Kong-based TCL Electronics Holdings from April next year.